Mike McCready picks his favourite Pearl Jam songs to play live
Pearl Jam always thrived off the feeling of being on the live stage. Although the band have been known to have their studio lab rat moments on albums like Vitalogy, the biggest highlight of their career came when they took classics like ‘Even Flow’ to the people directly. While Eddie Vedder may have liked to climb the scaffolding during the band’s early years, guitarist Mike McCready was trying to channel the freewheeling spirit of Jimi Hendrix.
When asked about his favourite Pearl Jam songs to perform live, McCready singled out the ballad ‘Black’ as something that he has a spiritual connection to. Whenever playing the song live, McCready mentioned going off the beaten path when it came time for his solo, saying: “I stay to the one main part, and then I try to expand on that every night we play it. If I’m not thinking about it—I’m just going, my eyes are closed, and I can see the guitar neck in my head—that’s when I’m playing it the best”.
McCready also singled out ‘Alive’ from Ten as a personal highlight, being a cornerstone of every single live set that the band has ever been a part of. Any rock band is always about more than just rocking out, though, and McCready’s other picks have to do more with the mellow side of rock and roll.
Choosing a bit of a deep cut, McCready also mentioned his love for the song ‘Off He Goes’ from No Code. Though the album was not considered a classic in its time, this song is a more intimate side of Vedder that we don’t see very often, talking about his standoffish nature and how hard it is for him to have a connection with his fellow bandmates.
Despite Vedder’s involvement in every single Pearl Jam song, McCready considered ‘Inside Job’ close to his heart as well. Taken from the band’s self-titled album, it is the first track that McCready came into the studio with the lyrics already finished, with Vedder interpreting the song as a confessional track of a man with a rough upbringing.
The stage is always about making something bigger than the studio, and McCready’s final pick was their cover version of The Who song ‘Baba O’Riley’. Rock had definitely changed since Pete Townshend wrote the rock classic, and Pearl Jam turned it into an arena-level anthem, bringing an alternative sense of bombast that seemed to be missing from the original.
While McCready has played thousands of shows with Pearl Jam at this point, he always relishes the freedom that comes with being onstage. When asked about his mindset whenever he plays one of his famous guitar solos, McCready mentioned: “It’s a weird paradox. I have to be spiritually motivated by it somehow. I could be keying off of Eddie’s vocals or the drums and bass we’re doing. The number one is to forget it and just go”.
Mike McCready’s favourite Pearl Jam songs to play live
- ‘Black’
- ‘Alive’
- ‘Off He Goes’
- ‘Inside Job’
- ‘Baba O’Riley’
Thousands of guitar players might like to play each of their solos note-perfectly, but that’s not what’s moving McCready to play his guitar every single day. Whenever you listen to Pearl Jam, you get another glimpse of McCready channelling his heroes through his guitar every night.
